Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Author Michael Pollan presents an examination of the four different types of meals that we Americans eat, and the consequences it has for our health and our ecosystem. Pollan is a journalist who has written several books and articles about food and agriculture, and now is a journalism professor at the University of California at Berkeley. For this book, he investigated the differences between the industrial corn-reliant agricultural system, the organic or alternative food system (both small and large-scaled), and food foraged through hunting and gathering. Pollan appeals to the reader’s interest with his eloquent, fact-based text and a full character assessment of each of the individuals he meets on his journeys. He also reflects upon the moral issues of eating meat.

The Nanny

This is a fictional account of a true-to-life situation, written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Our heroine actually is named Nanny, and she is looking to supplement her income while attending NYU as a child development major and sharing a minuscule Manhattan apartment. She has worked as a nanny before, and can describe the typical characteristics of the children and parents. But this job is different! The X family consists of three separate units that rarely interact: Grayer is the four-year-old son who is precocious, demanding and longing for maternal love; Mrs. X lives for herself and whatever benefit and bauble she can grab; Mr. X is involved in his business and an affair and has little or no time for his wife and son. We also get to examine relationships between the sexes as Nanny becomes romantically involved with Harvard Hottie.
This satire of the upper class and of life in the early years of the
21st century will amuse most readers. The book was made into a movie in 2007, and the book’s sequel, Nanny Returns, was recently published.

The Senator's Wife

Author Sue Miller has written a timely novel about marriage and marital infidelity. Meri Fowler, a recently-married, pregnant woman in her mid-thirties moves with her husband Nathan into a New England townhouse adjacent to one owned by Delia and Tom Naughton, a couple in their seventies. Delia is the main occupant of the house; her husband Tom is a renowned liberal senator who also is a notorious philanderer. Although Delia and Tom have not lived together as man and wife for many years, they have not divorced and in fact periodically get together for a romantic rendezvous.

As neighbors, Meri and Delia become close confidantes. Delia provides the closeness Meri never received from her mother. As the plot unfolds, Meri endures disconcerting emotions after the birth of her son, and Delia experiences a new lease on life when she participates in the rehabilitation of Tom’s health after he suffers a stroke. Then, a disastrous event upsets it all.

"The Book of Night Women" by Marlon James

The Book of Night Women is the tale of a young slave coming of age in Jamaica at the turn of the 19th Century. The book is written as a slave narrative and chronicles the life of Lilith and the inhumane abuses that her and her fellow slaves were force to endure.

Lilith, at the verge of womanhood, finds herself exposed to the ugly truth of rape, murder and torture that plantation life as a slave has in store for her. After narrowly escaping rape at the hands of a fellow slave, Lilith is sheltered by the house slaves at the plantation, eventually being permanently assigned to the house by the plantation’s “master”. After a dire accident during a cocktail party, Lilith finds herself mercilessly whipped by her owners. This indignation fuels Lilith’s rage at the white slave owners which have control over her. Lilith joins a group of female slaves who call themselves “The Night Women,” who are all connected through their common parentage -- they are all the children of an abusive white slave driver. This group eventually orchestrates a slave revolt across several of Jamaica’s plantations -- a coup d’etat that has tragic results.

Read-a-Likes

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Amistad by David Pesci
The Dark Sun Rises by Denise J. Williamson
The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts
The Known World by Edward P. Jones

February is National Heart Awareness Month

Here are three recently published books that focus on various aspects of heart health.

American Heart Association Complete Guide to Women’s Heart Health: the Go Red for Women Way to Well-Being and Vitality. This book provides advice for maintaining heart health and keeping heart disease at bay, for women from their 20s through their 70s and beyond. Coverage includes information on a nutritious diet, beneficial exercise and control of risk factors. Also addressed are issues such as smoking, pregnancy, menopause and hormone therapy, aging, diabetes and other diseases.

American Heart Association Healthy Family Meals: 150 Recipes Everyone Will Love. The heart-healthy recipes in this book focus mainly on dinner entrees for the busy family, accompanied by side dishes of soup, salad, vegetables and grains. Dessert is not forgotten! Also offered are tips on grocery shopping and eating out.

Exercises for Heart Health: the Complete Plan for Heart Attack, Heart Surgery, and Cardiovascular Disease Recovery and Prevention. The book prescribes an easy-to-follow exercise plan for cardiac health and muscle strength. It includes a main section on the exercises, accompanied by many photos and detailed written instructions. It also has an overview of the causes of cardiac disease and recent clinical treatments for cardiac conditions.

New Year's Resolutions: Diet and Exercise

Here are three recent publications that can help you reach your goals for shaping up and slimming down.

Fitness after 40: How to Stay Strong at any Age, is written by Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon. Wright believes that it is a sedentary lifestyle, not biology that is the accelerant of aging. She imparts methods to achieve post-midlife fitness through the F.A.C.E. system of flexibility, aerobic exercise, load-bearing exercise and maximizing equilibrium and balance. The book includes exercise routines and an eating plan.

Joy’s Life Diet: Four Steps to Thin Forever, written by Today Show nutrition and health expert Joy Bauer, presents a weight-loss program based on her “Look Incredible, Feel Extraordinary” (L.I.F.E.) system. Bauer explains how to overcome unhealthy eating habits and satisfy cravings with low-calorie substitutes. She shares tips on staying motivated, exercising and working through plateaus. Sample menus, recipes and exercises are given also.

The Mayo Clinic Diet: Eat Well, Enjoy Life, Lose Weight, written by the weight-loss experts at the Mayo Clinic, offers a two-part weight-loss program. The first part “Lose It!” is a two-week introduction that results in the loss of six to ten pounds, if the dieter adopts new good habits and drops the old bad habits. The second part “Live It!” is a continuation of weight loss of one to two pounds per week using the new habits. Topics such as meal planning, eating out, and stress reduction also are discussed.

U is for Undertow

With the latest installment in her alphabet mystery series, author Sue Grafton continues her depiction of the coastal California, 1980s-based world of private investigator Kinsey Milhone. This time around, Kinsey is approached by a young man wanting to hire her to investigate a child abduction that occurred twenty years ago. The prospective client, who was six years old at the time, thinks he remembers seeing two men burying the child in a backwoods area. Against, her better judgment, Kinsey takes on the case. And like most of her cases, this one is completely different from all of the others, yet she again is able to unearth the solution, enabling justice to prevail. In a background story, Kinsey also moves closer to reconciliation with her deceased mother’s family. Skilled plotting and deftly drawn characters make this one of Grafton’s better entries in the series.